


Enemy Action

by Sixthlight



Series: It Takes A Police Officer [3]
Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Multi, References to Drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 23:22:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14412705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/pseuds/Sixthlight
Summary: I flicked my bedroom light on. Even the dim incandescent bulb I had back here was too bright, and I had to shade my eyes for a second.Sitting cross-legged on my bed, Beverley Thames did the same thing. “Ow.”





	Enemy Action

“You should have another one,” Lesley said, after the silence had lasted too long again. Not actual silence – the pub was too crowded for that – but the silence between us.

“Nah,” I said. “Not in the mood.”

“Peter, you just got -” she said. “If it was me I wouldn’t be standing by now.” She moved to stand. “Let me get you another one, come on.”

“Yeah, and then what?” I said. “I’ll wake up tomorrow with a headache and I’ll still have been…it won’t change anything.”

“But at least you won’t be such a sad-sack tonight.”

I pushed my pint glass across the table at her. “Oh – fine then, but you’re paying, if you’re going to make such a big deal about it.”

“I said I would, didn’t I?” She was up almost before I’d finished speaking.

I waited until she was well-lost behind the crowd at the bar and ducked out the far door. It wasn’t our usual, because that was a coppers’ bar, and I wasn’t a copper any more. Not after today.

It was sleeting outside, the kind of miserable wetness that penetrates even the most waterproof clothing, and it was a ten-minute walk to the nearest Tube station. I shoved my hands into my pockets and tried not to let snippets of this morning replay in my head. _I don’t believe it,_ Sahra had said, and _it’s not you but, Christ, Peter, I can’t find a way to prove it wasn’t,_ Stephanopoulos had told me in the interview room, mouth turned down, and _I know you’re not that fucking stupid,_ Seawoll had snarled, but glumly – because he’d known it didn’t matter what he knew. And he was a superintendent, so what fucking chance did I have?

_If they go through with this I’ll throw in the towel,_ Lesley had told me, chin up and fire in her eye, and she’d said it again at the pub, but I didn’t believe that. Lesley was a copper through and through.

My phone started buzzing just before I entered the Tube - Mum again. I turned it off. I couldn't even imagine talking to her right now. Or Dad. Christ. 

There were some young blokes at my Tube station posturing at each other, a mixed group of white and Asian boys and one girl with her arms folded around herself, looking like she might slip away at any second. It was the kind of thing that might defuse itself or might spill over and I couldn’t see any BTP officers around. I thought about calling it in for half a second and then remembered that I couldn’t. I could call 999, of course. I could go find a BTP officer, if there was one about. But I couldn’t call it in.

I waited until they’d finished with the insults and the shoving and the girl had given one of them the excuse he needed to walk away and the whole elaborate ritual had collapsed like a house of cards, the participants dispersing into the night, and then I walked home. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do if it had gone the other way. It just didn’t feel right to leave it.

I opened the front door and hung up my coat without consciously processing any of it, and ploughed on through the living room towards my bedroom at the back of the flat, dropping my keys as I went. Absent the option of getting completely shit-faced, as Lesley had advised, my plan was to fall face-first onto my bed and wait until unconsciousness crept up and whacked me from behind. It seemed like it might hurt less than all the other options. 

Even if I’d wanted to talk to someone, the people I might have wanted to talk to – I didn’t have their phone numbers. Right up until about, oh, this morning, it had seemed like a terrible idea.

My bedroom had no windows and I didn’t fancy banging around in the dark while I took my shoes off, so I flicked the light on. Even the dim incandescent bulb I had in here was too bright after no illumination except the streetlight leaking in through the living room window all the way to the back of the flat. I had to shade my eyes for a second.

Sitting cross-legged on my bed, Beverley Thames did the same thing. “Ow.”

I think normally I would have jumped and yelled in a way I’m sure Beverley would have found entirely gratifying – she says as much – but I was so out of it that evening I didn’t even have the energy for that. I just stared. “Were you…were you just sitting here in the dark waiting for me?”

“I didn’t want to startle you.” She was wearing dark grey cargo pants and a dark navy knitted turtleneck with a narrow cable pattern, her braids tucked up in a bun at the base of her neck, nothing that screamed _burglar_ but colours that blended into the shadows. (Never wear black if you want to do that – real black stands out if there’s any light at all.) She’d taken off her shoes. “You got some bad news today.”

I laughed – I couldn’t help it. “Right. Yeah.” She was sitting there all gloriously lovely and emblematic of stupid decisions I’d made, and there was a horrible sick question I didn’t want to ask, so I went with Plan A and flopped face-first onto the bed, toeing my shoes off once I was face-down in the soft but rather chilly duvet. Beverley hadn’t touched the heating.

Beverley laid a hand on the back of my head. I’d had a haircut recently, right back to basics, and her palm was warm so close to the skin of my scalp.

“Before you ask,” she said, quietly. “Ty told me, and her friend Folsom told her, but it wasn’t anything to do with him or her or me or Thomas or anybody in my family. We did warn you – Thomas came and warned you.”

I had to roll onto my side; there was no point talking into the duvet. I addressed her thigh instead. She kept stroking the back of my neck. If pressed I might have admitted it was nice.

“I was going to ask, but let me ask this instead. Why should I believe that?”

“Because it’s not the sort of thing we do and you know it,” she said, “and because you’re smart and suspicious and tonight you’re stunned but tomorrow you’ll be angry. And if there was any chance it was me, or Thomas, any at all, you’d never forgive us.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” I nuzzled against her thigh. She didn’t seem to mind. “Speaking of.”

“On his way. He was visiting a friend in Finchley.”

“That sounds suspiciously mundane.”

“We have friends, you know. And appointments with hairdressers and trips to the corner shop to pick up milk and all sorts of boring bits in our lives.”

“I know you do.” Everybody did, everybody we investigated, the mundane bits of their lives were usually how we started picking apart their stories, but I’d let myself pretend Beverley and Nightingale just danced in and out of my life to hand me moral dilemmas on a platter. That way I didn’t have to remember they were just as criminal as anybody else I’d ever had to go after. “And what, I’m supposed to believe you both just dropped everything because you heard I’d had a bad day?”

“Peter.” She yanked gently at my scruff. I gave in and sat up. “Someone set you up. It’s a bit more than a bad day. And Sahra Guleed or your boss or your boss’s boss should have found a way around it and they didn’t.”

I closed my eyes; I couldn’t look at her for this. “If this is some sort of better offer, I need you to go.”

It was going to be too fucking tempting.

“It’s some bloody sympathy,” said Beverley, “although honestly I’m getting less sympathetic by the second.”

I opened my eyes. “Yeah, I’m such a fucking trial, aren’t I.”

“Whoever it was exactly,” Beverley said, “when I find out, they’re going to regret it for the rest of their lives. Which will be long, so they can be properly miserable. They used your _dad_.”

“Oh, maybe not,” I said, “maybe someone planted some heroin from the evidence locker in my desk because it was all they could get, maybe they’d have preferred some marijuana or a suspicious pile of dosh if they could get it, maybe that was all they had in,” and I absolutely did not want to talk or think or consider that aspect of it any more, because of all the kicks in the sodding teeth – so instead of talking or thinking or considering, I kissed her.

It became evident almost immediately she hadn’t been expecting that, so I pulled back nearly as quickly as I’d gone in, because kissing when done properly is a two-person affair.

“Are you drunk?” Beverley asked, tongue swiping her lower lip.

“I had _one pint_ ,” I said. “If I was drunk I’d be much less argumentative.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” she said, and this time she kissed me. I wasn’t expecting it either, but I was much readier to get with the programme.

I’d had a lot of thoughts about kissing Beverley but for a number of variously entertaining and frustrating reasons I’d never had the opportunity, so of course it was happening now, when my entire life was burning down around me. I put my hands on her waist and pulled her in close, and she put her hands on my chest and started unbuttoning my shirt. It’s always good when you’re both on the same page from the start.

I let myself really sink into it, having her in my bed, with all the time we wanted. It felt as surreal as the rest of the day had been. No rush of adrenaline, no lurking knowledge that this was a terrible time or place or both, just Beverley’s mouth soft under mine, the slight roughness of wool as I got my hands under the turtleneck to pull it over her head, her teeth nipping my lip as we came back together. She was wearing a plain red cotton t-shirt underneath it. I worked my hands under that as well, up the curve of her side to cup her breasts. Beverley slid hers under the waistband of my trousers to pull me in against her, which led to about three seconds of delicious grinding friction before things like gravity and leverage reasserted themselves and we fell flat on the bed, Beverley underneath me. I managed to get my arms out in time to not put my full weight on her.

“Good catch,” Beverley mumbled, arching her neck as I mouthed down it.

“Being winded isn’t very sexy, in my experience,” I said into her clavicle. She’d let go of my bum and was up on her elbows undoing the catch of her own bra, which was good forward thinking.

She let out a snort of laughter I assumed was at my high wit and skinned her bra off one shoulder. I took the hint and licked across the wide, dark circle of her areola. I got a shivery gasp in response, which sounded promising, and devoted a good few minutes to giving her breasts the attention they deserved. Beverley wriggled out of her trousers underneath me, when she had the coordination, and then tugged at my shoulders.

“Up here, or get your own trousers off,” she said.

I obliged with regards to my clothes, but didn’t come further up; instead I slid down, and kissed her inner thigh. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” she said, firmly, and wrapped her legs around my shoulders in case I changed my mind. No fear of that. I could smell her, and I got closer in to part her damp folds with my tongue.

“Hnnngh,” said Beverley. “Yeah, okay, you can – mmmm – fingers, but just, just start with onnnneee….”

The angle was a bit awkward to get my arm up but the way she bucked her hips once I had, and we’d figured out a rhythm, was worth it. For the last few seconds all I really had to do was hold on as she ground against my mouth and came, and came. It felt like drowning, but in the best way.

I’d been absent-mindedly rocking against the bed. Beverley let her legs flop down and I pulled away, wiping my mouth. The entire lower half of my face felt sticky.

“Hmmmmm,” Beverley sighed. “If you don’t have condoms it’s your own silly fault -”

“Are you telling me you didn’t come prepared?” I said, crawling up the bed to nuzzle at the side of her neck again, figuring she might want a minute to cool down.

“It was an emergency,” she said, but she was already fishing in my bedside drawer. “Huh. Hmmm. Yes – wait, nope. Here we go.” She pressed the box into my hand; apparently it was my job to get one out. “There’s some interesting things in there.”

“We can discuss those at a later date,” I said, gripping the base of my cock as I rolled the condom on; it was hard to focus with Beverley on the bed in front of me like that.

“Pretty sure my collection’s better,” she said, grinning, and slung her legs around my hips. She was so wet I just sank in with barely any guidance, and now it was my turn to gasp and dig my hands into the sheet – we’d kicked away the duvet – trying to hold on.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to hold on,” she said, but she was snaking a hand down between our bodies to trace around where we were joined, so I gritted my teeth and tried to focus on the journey and not the destination. Beverley brought my head down to kiss me again, fierce and deep. I felt it like lightning down my spine, and I came in a wave of blissful, momentary blankness. She wasn’t very long behind.

“I really don’t know why we took so long to get to a bed,” she said, stretching, as I came back from disposing of the condom.

“You ambushed me in a storage room,” I pointed out, climbing back onto the bed. “And then Thomas in my own entranceway.”

“I’m sure they had a bed somewhere, and I know you have a bed here.”

“So enjoy it,” I said. She grinned into my shoulder.

We lay there getting our breath back and I was wondering idly if I might be up for a second round in a little while, and if she might be, when there was a buzzing noise, as unto someone’s phone on vibrate, emanating from the side of the bed Beverley’s clothes had (mostly) ended up on. Her bra was hanging off the doorknob, but I think that was some sort of universal constant of the kind of sex we’d just had. I couldn’t think of a logical explanation that involved physics, anyway.

“Hmmm,” said Beverley, and wriggled away, her phone apparently more enticing than my naked body. I tried not to read anything into this. She wriggled back right away, anyway. “Where’s your spare key?”

“Don’t you have it? How else did you get in?”

She looked over her shoulder just to roll her eyes at me. “I don’t need a key to get in. So where is it?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Who do you think?”

“You’re telling me he can’t break in as easily as you can?”

“Obviously,” Beverley said. “But not nearly as subtly, and I assume you’d like to get your security deposit back on this place.”

“Well, tell him to try the door, then. I didn’t lock it behind me.” I wondered for a second about maybe putting my trousers on but it seemed like a lot of effort and Beverley clearly wasn’t bothered. We’d pulled the sheets up, but only because, as I said, it was still chilly enough that you needed to turn the heat on of an evening and Beverley hadn’t.

“While you’re out there,” I called when I heard the outer door to the living room opening, “turn the radiator on, will you?”

 “If you do have a spare key,” Beverley said, “you should really give it to a neighbor. It’s much safer.”

 “I quite agree,” said Nightingale, opening the door to the bedroom. “Shall I turn on the one in here as well?”

“Please,” I said. It took him a second to find the knob. He was dressed casually, the right sort of thing for drinks with a friend, but there was a cut on the knuckles of his right hand.

He stood next to the bed – well, he couldn’t avoid that, my bedroom was small enough it had been half a morning’s exercise to get the bed in here. Beverley picked up his right hand and examined it.

“You know better than to punch walls,” she said.

“Abdul reminded me as much,” he said, sitting down. “I’d say I was sorry for how long it took to get here, but it looks like I wasn’t missed.”

“We kept busy.” I sat up. “You didn’t have to…”

“Yes he did.” Beverley sat up too, but she settled comfortably in against the wall with, somehow, every pillow I had. I wasn’t sure how they were still even on the bed. “Did you spend most of that time trying to find a park?”

“Only about half.” He was examining me critically, as if looking for something he wasn’t seeing. “I must admit you seem a lot more sober than I expected by this time. Considering.”

“I don’t know why everybody seems so insistent that being off my face is the only way to deal with this.” It came out a bit more sour than I meant it to.

“Not at all,” he said. “But it’s quite a common reaction, when one feels one’s world has ended.”

“Let’s not overdramatise things,” I said. “The world’s ticking along just fine without me in the Met, and so is the Met.” Of course, that was part of the kick in the chest.

“I didn’t say _the_ world.” He’d been military, I remembered, once upon a time, and even the stuff we had didn’t really cover why he wasn’t anymore. I wondered how his personal world had ended.

I let him take my hand, since he seemed to want to. Beverley’s legs were still half-tangled with mine.

“I thought, you know,” I said after a minute or two. “That if something happened, it’d be because of this.”

“Nah,” said Beverley. “You’re smarter than that and so are we.”

“It’s a bizarre sort of compliment in its own way.” I gave Nightingale a very sceptical look at that, but he went on. “No, really – you were worth getting out of the way. And, all things considered, I’m glad it was this and not anything more permanent.”

My mouth was dry; probably all the sweating I’d just been doing. It was cool on my skin now. “Going after police officers is a very silly thing to do.”

“If you think you’re going to get caught, it is, yes.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, “but it wouldn’t have been just my pissed-off former colleagues he'd have been dealing with, in that instance. Which would make it very _very_ stupid.”

“That’s not common knowledge though,” said Beverley. “Not even knowledge really. Except my mum.” She looked to me. “Do you know what you’re going to do next?”

“At some point I’m going to find something to eat,” I said. “And tonight I’m going to sleep. And tomorrow…is going to have to take care of itself.” I paused. “You know what the stupid thing is – I’m still thinking, how are they going to nail the bastard now. If he can sort this kind of thing I’m not sure there’s much of a chance of that. And there should be.”

“Even if they did, do you really think it’d stick?” Beverley didn’t sound remotely convinced.

“It has to be worth trying, or what’s the point?”

“You still think that.” I couldn’t tell what Nightingale meant by the sentence; it was very neutral.

“Someone has to,” I said, “or at least someone has to try and do it right. I thought that was going to be me.”

“I remember that feeling,” he said. “Sometimes it does have to be you. Sometimes it doesn’t matter.”

“Look, if you still want to do something about it,” Beverley said, very severely, “then get on and do it. Otherwise, I haven’t had dinner either.”

“What,” I said, “are you offering to help?”

Nightingale laughed, and leaned in to kiss me before I stood up, gentle and lingering for just a second. But I could still taste Beverley faintly on my tongue and the edges of my lips, and he probably could as well. My palm curled around the smooth rise of her thigh, involuntarily.

“Or,” said Beverley. “Make up your mind.”

“I’ll admit to being curious about the bed,” he said, as we pulled away. “Having not had the pleasure of it, the last time I was here.”

“You knocked,” I said, since I was never admitting the thing about the sheets. “I just walked in and found her here.”

“It was more comfortable than your couch,” said Beverley, throwing back the sheet and stretching as she stood, hands on her lower back. I couldn’t have looked away if you’d paid me. “Too late, I made up my mind, we’re finding food.”

“I’ll hold that thought,” I said, and felt around for my shirt, which I was sure had stayed on the bed somewhere.

“My question is,” said Nightingale, handing me my trousers, “what’s your plan?”


End file.
